William Shepperd Ashe

William Shepperd Ashe (born September 14, 1814 in Rocky Point , Pender County , North Carolina , †  September 14, 1862 in Wilmington , North Carolina) was an American politician . Between 1849 and 1855 he represented the state of North Carolina in the US House of Representatives .

Career

William Ashe was a member of a well-known family of politicians. He was the younger brother of Congressman John Baptista Ashe (1810-1857) from Tennessee and a nephew of the congressman of the same name for North Carolina, John Baptista Ashe (1748-1802). Congressman Thomas Samuel Ashe (1812-1887) was his cousin. He attended public schools in Fayetteville and then the Trinity College in Hartford ( Connecticut ). Ashe then worked as a rice planter. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1836, he began working in his new profession in New Hanover County .

Politically, Ashe became a member of the Democratic Party . In the presidential election of 1844 he was one of James K. Polk's electors . Between 1846 and 1846 he was a member of the North Carolina Senate . In the congressional election of 1848 Ashe was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC , in the seventh constituency of North Carolina , where he succeeded James Iver McKay on March 4, 1849 . After two re-elections, he was able to complete three legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1855 . From 1853 he represented the third constituency of his state there as the successor to Alfred Dockery . From 1851 to 1853 he was chairman of the election committee. His time as a congressman was marked by the discussions leading up to the civil war . At that time it was mainly about the question of slavery and the rights of the individual states. In 1854, Ashe declined to run again.

Ashe was President of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad Company since 1854 . He held this post until his death. Between 1859 and 1861 he was once again a member of the State Senate. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston . A year later he was a member of a meeting to revise the North Carolina state constitution. At the beginning of the Civil War, William Ashe became a major in the Confederation Army . He was responsible for the transport of supplies. He died in a railway accident on September 14, 1862 near Wilmington.

Web links

• William Shepperd Ashe in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William Shepperd Ashe in the database of Find a Grave (English)